Overview
What I’d like to do in this review is consider Runebound not as a competitive game, but as a solo or co-op story-telling game. To my mind, Runebound is best thought of as a rough draft of of Arkham Horror in much the same way that Doom: The Boardgame can be thought of as a rough draft of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. As a forerunner of Arkham Horror, Runebound only really shines when story elements are brought to the fore. In fact, I’ve written two session reports that took solo games of Runebound and turned them into one-off stories.

The love song of Red and Rune

The delusions of Victor Carp

It took me a while to come to the conclusion that Runebound is best played as a co-op / solo game. The first time that I played Runebound I was not impressed. As others have pointed out, as a competitive, multiplayer game the game suffers from a lack of player interaction, repetitive mechanics and a snowballing effect in which a player who early on manages to draw a choice item or manages a lucky roll of the dice will likely pull further and further ahead of the other players. True, one can buy “character decks” that give players special cards that can be played against other players, and certain of the expansions offer yet more cards that can be used against other players, but in my opinion these additions are more-or-less arbitrary. They do not contribute to the heroic storytelling theme of the game, and they are ad hoc mechanics designed to let players stab each other in the back.

Runebound, though, isn’t Cosmic Encounter. It is more like an heroic fantasy version of the Game of Life - 40th Anniversary Edition. This is a realization that I had when I pulled the game out for a play with my oldest daughter (13) about 6 months ago. There is a track (i.e., a character arc) that is defined by stuff to buy, encounters, money…all the trappings of a suburban life, only transferred to a setting of Ferrox’s and Dragonlords, mountains and swamps. And just as the point of Life is not so much the winning but rather the journey, the same might be said of Runebound. Only once I made this connection did the game really click for me.


There are many excellent reviews of Runebound and various of its expansions. What I’m going to do in this review is detail four card expansions: The Traps and Terrors, The Dark Forest, The Cataclysm, and The Scepter of Kyros. For each I will summarize the expansion and discuss its strengths and weaknesses in relation to a co-op / solo story-telling experience. The grades that I provide are based purely on my opinion of how these expansions work for this sort of play. Unlike others, I am not a fan of adding all challenge expansions and all item/ally expansions into Mega-decks. To my this is like taking the different courses of a meal and putting them in a blender. I prefer to pick and choose from the card expansions depending on the kind of story I’m after.

Before I get to the four expansions here are just a few pointers that I have found to be useful for running Runebound as a solo / co-op storytelling game.

1) Use a clock of some sort. This cannot be emphasized enough. All stories have a “The End.” Also, without a clock there is no reason not to take your time becoming a “munchkin,” and then cakewalking over the endgame. I’d recommend either the “Doom track variant” or, as is my preference, a method proposed by BGG user Mr. Skeletor. In this latter method a 20-sided die is set at some baseline value. Every round of turns it will decrease by 1. The 2 combat dice are rolled at the end of every round of turns. If the value is greater than the value on the 20-sided die, a chit is accumulated, and the 20-sided die resets. This continues until 10 chits are obtained at which point the game ends.

2) If playing coop, heroes may be played as allies, but only players that have defeated a Blue challenge may take on other heroes as allies. The purpose for a delay is to let each hero develop a backstory. When an encounter is defeated by allied heroes the players decide how to split the experience and gold.

3) After a character has defeated a Blue encounter, they must take on a “story-telling penalty.” For example, “It is my calling to clear the mountains of X even though we are almost out of time” or “In the combat that almost cost me my life, I lost an arm, and suffer a permanent penalty to ranged combat rolls.” Again, the idea here is to develop an interesting backstory, and a means of ratcheting up the tension.

4) If a character dies, all other characters must visit Talamir and get rid of their most expensive item. When this is done, the character is resurrected (as per knock outs). In solo play, when a hero dies, the game ends.

5) Remember that as with any creative enterprise, one has to remain flexible and open to improvisation. Rules are best thought of as frameworks for doing something interesting and fun.



Traps and Terrors (grade = A-)
T&T is a 30-card challenge deck expansion. It consists of 1 Red, 7 Blue, 10 Yellow, and 12 Green challenge / event cards. Only three of the challenge cards are challenges in the usual sense of “defeat a baddie.” The single Red card involves defeating a “Slumbering Dragonlord.” One of the yellow cards has you defeat a “Hand of Doom” unleashed from a treasure chest, and one of the Green cards involves defeating a “Stealthy Specter.” The rest of the challenges are traps of various sorts. For example, there are “Gelatinous Pits,” and “Scything Chutes,” etc. The artwork for each of these is evocative of the mechanical nature of the challenges. Further, since these are traps we are talking about, most of them require a skill check prior to engaging in “combat.” For example, the “Scything Chute” reads: “Prior to combat test Jump (15) to avoid the spinning blades. If you fail, you take 3 heart.” In addition to the challenges there are 10 encounter / event cards in this expansion. These range from sneaking into thieves guilds, to going through sewers, to looking for lost expeditions.


Comments
T&T’s main strength is that it does not make reference to a specific story line. What T&T does is provide story telling elements of the sort that one might come across in Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Tales from 1001 Nights. Personally, I like the theme, and think that it fits in most naturally with the big box expansion Sands of Al-Kalim, but I have also added it in with the vanilla Runebound challenges. With Sands of Al-Kalim I use the following rules.

1) Discard the Red challenge card (Slumbering Dragonlord), Yellow event card "Cursed Treasure", and the green event cards "Plague of Pickpockets" and "Spirits Rising." Shuffle the rest cards in with the regular challenges.

2) Draws occur from the bottom of the challenge decks.

3) When a T&T card is drawn and defeated, immediately draw another challenge card.

4) Challenge cards continue to be drawn and defeated until a "Sands" challenge is drawn and defeated.

5) If a retreat is made, cards are drawn and kept face down until a "Sands" challenge appears. The symbols of the back of the cards are different so it is easy enough to tell the card types apart. All of these cards are then put at the top of the board as the "undefeated challenge."

This variant makes the game somewhat brutal, but a lot of fun when a character does manage to work through, say, two traps capped off by a baddie. It also speeds up the game, because experience and gold are accumulated at a faster rate.

T&T’s main weakness in my opinion is that the cards can give Runebound an arbitrary feel. Why exactly would I encounter a teleporting room in the grasslands? The fact that a trap must be defeated with a mechanic that is identical to defeating monsters is also a bit of a kludge. For some cards it makes more sense than for others.


The Dark Forest (grade = B+)
DF is a 30-card challenge deck expansion. It consists of 2 Red, 7 Blue, 9 Yellow, and 12 Green challenge / encounter cards. For the most part these cards are baddies to fight, most of whom have “woodland” feel to them. For example, the “Enchantress” card reads: “The fey of the wood are beautiful, beguiling creatures, but those who dally with them are more likely to become victims than paramours.” There are references to druids, bandits, mold, spores, etc. In addition to creatures, there are 9 encounter cards (DF does not have any event cards). 2 are blue, 3 are yellow and 4 are green. Each of these encounters involves skill checks, which if successful, produce a benefit to the hero. The value of the benefit increases with card color. So, the Green encounter “Gift of the Druids” allows a player to change a set number of movement dice, whereas the Blue encounter “Primal Transformation” allows a player to add an experience chit to each of the three main attributes, but at the cost of lowering stamina to 0.


Comments
DF’s main strength is pretty straightforward – it adds new baddies to fight, and the 9 encounter cards provide some fun fluff / benefits. In terms of story telling elements, the cards are focused on woodland encounters and reference the main story arc that comes with the base game. As an addition to the base game, then, this expansion is rock solid.

The focus of DF, though, is also its main weakness. Unlike T&T these encounters will not be appropriate for, say, Sands of Al-Kalim. Also, adding the cards to one of the adventure variants, e.g., The Cataclysm, will introduce story references that are out of place. Finally, many of the cards are designed to increase competitive player-player interaction. For example, the “Foul Nymph” challenge, if defeated, can be discarded before another player rolls movement dice, turning all attempted movement hexes into swamp.

To use the DF expansion with other adventure variants or in a solo / coop game, players must first ignore all references to player-vs-player benefits. Just treat the challenges as straight-up combats. Depending on the adventure variant, I’d recommend going through the deck and discarding certain cards. Personally, I like how DF interacts with the adventure variant, The Cataclysm because so much of this adventure takes place away from cities. Here is my suggested discards for mixing DF into The Cataclysm.

1) Discard the Green encounters “Prep for War” and “Toll Collector.” The reason for this is that they make reference to cities which have been destroyed or potentially made unavailable.

2) Discard the Blue encounter “A New Refuge.” The reason here is that the benefit of healing in the wild is already a mechanic in this adventure.

3) Discard all Red challenges.


The Cataclysm (grade = C)
The Cataclysm is an adventure variant for the base Runebound game. The story hook is that a meteor strike has occurred which has destroyed several cities. The remaining cities are in the thrall of 5 different curses. The expansion comes with 5 curse decks of six cards each, and 8 meteor tokens. At the start of the game the tokens are randomly drawn and placed on the 8 cities of Terrinoth. Five of the tokens correspond to different curse decks. These are the cities that survived the meteor, but that are cursed. The remaining three cities have been destroyed. The ultimate task of the heroes is to lift curses, which range from a demon, to a brood of dragons, to a group of “Mind Raiders.” To lift a curse one uses the curse decks to first enter a city (which is usually accomplished via a skill check), accomplish a quest, (which usually involves traveling to a particular red challenge area and making skill checks), and finally defeating the associated big baddie.

An important element of this variant involves the mechanic for healing and purchases. In the base game these actions occur in cities, but since cities are unavailable at the start of the game, another mechanic is used. Namely, before rolling movement dice, one can opt to set a certain number aside in a pool. These are rolled, and any terrain that a hero moves over that matches symbols in the pool, is assumed to contain refugees who will sell items OR grant healing.


Comments
The Cataclysm’s main strength is its story hook. When I first read the blurb, it just sounded cool. The idea that cities are completely unavailable at the start of the game provides some early tension and background color. Also, the mechanic of setting aside a pool of dice for healing or purchasing is rather clever because it forces a player to make a meaningful decision every turn: odds of healing/purchasing vs. movement.

However, after several plays, I’ve concluded that this adventure variant is a bit weak. First off, the Green, Yellow and Blue challenge cards from the base game need to be used. However, many of these make reference to the Dragonlords story arc or to cities that are now destroyed. In order to eliminate this story arc, it is necessary to weed out the base challenge decks. My recommendations are

1) Remove all non-challenge cards (i.e., events and encounters)

2) Weed out most of the dragon-heavy Blue challenges. I usually remove three of these.

3) Remove the “Lord Vorakesh” challenge from the Yellow deck.

Once the challenge decks are weeded out, this does not leave many challenge cards. So, in order to play The Cataclysm, one is almost required to add a challenge card expansion. As I mentioned above, I’ve successfully used The Dark Forest.

Another weakness of The Cataclysm concerns its ability to be used in solo / co-op play. First off, the given victory conditions are point based, which from a story standpoint is meaningless. This can be remedied by requiring that 3 / 5 curses be lifted before the next winter equinox (i.e., before the clock runs out). Secondly, though, two of the final big baddies refer to player vs. player mechanics in their challenges. For example, one requires that before combat the hero and his allies face all Challenge cards collected by all other players w/o refreshing in between combats. Furthermore, in my opinion the difficulty of the final challenges rests on rather arbitrary elements. For example, one challenge hammers characters when a 3 or a 6 appears on the combat dice. In another discard items cannot be used, and activate-to-use items become discard items. Why? Well, I guess, why not. For all of these reasons I give The Cataclysm a low grade.


The Scepter of Kyros (grade = A)
The Scepter of Kyros, like The Cataclysm, is an adventure variant for the base Runebound game. Compared with The Cataclysm, the plot hook and mechanics are incredibly straightforward. Giants have descended upon Terrinoth, and once the endgame is triggered, several of the cities will become occupied by a unique giant. These cities must be liberated in order to win the game. Think of the classic children’s story “Jack the Giant Killer” and you would not be too far off.

The mechanics of the game are identical to the base Runebound game with the following exceptions. Red Challenges are not used (but a Red card or two might come up in play). The base Blue Challenge deck is replaced with a Kyros Blue Challenge deck that consists solely of giants. Finally, whenever a Yellow or Green event / encounter card is drawn it is replaced by a draw from the requisite Yellow or Green Kyros deck.

Aside from story alterations, the main mechanic introduced by The Scepter of Kyros involves the giants who take over a city. These adversaries get to use the market stacks of their city as possessions in the same manner as heroes. Also, their attributes (i.e., stamina, heart, etc.) are improved in a manner that depends on the number of cards in the city’s market stack.


Comments
The Scepter of Kyros is an excellent expansion deck. The Event cards provide nice background color, the different giants have special abilities that interact with their “personalities” in a coherent manner, as adversaries they are challenging, the triggered endgame provides pacing that is absent in the base game, and the endgame is feels epic. Really, I have no criticisms of this expansion. It provides a lot of playtime for the money.

That said, I do have some suggestions for playing this adventure variant in solo or co-op mode.

1) Start off the game by dealing three market cards face down for each city. This guarantees that when the endgame is triggered, a giant will have three previously unknown cards to work with. The reason for doing this is that in solo play, many cities do not get visited very often. Also, the rules stipulate that giants always take over cities in a fixed pattern. In co-op mode, the temptation is to avoid visiting these cities or to buy up all of their goods in order to keep the market cards down.

2) Consider randomizing the cities that get occupied. I am personally ambivalent about this, but it adds a nice bit of surprise.

3) Rather than have a turn clock for the whole game, restrict it to the end game.

4) Finally, give the giants the option of leaving their cities in order to track heroes down. When I’ve done this, I give the giants 7 movement dice instead of the 4/5 that heroes are allowed. Naturally, giants cannot occupy another city, but they can return to their initial city.


Conclusion
In this review I’ve argued that Runebound is best categorized as a co-op / solo storytelling game rather than a competitive player vs. player game. I compared it to the Game of Life, which no doubt will make some readers uncomfortable. The Game of Life is a kid’s game! Perhaps these readers will be more comfortable with the comparison to Once Upon a Time. Runebound is Once Upon a Time with a board and bits. I’ve also described two challenge card expansions and two adventure variants to Runebound and attempted to discuss how and whether they can be used in co-op / solo play. For any that have made it through the whole review: thanks for reading it, and I look forward to any comments, suggestions or insights from your own experiences with this game.